Kiawah Island 2015

We just spent a week at Kiawah Island with my family and we had a great time and BEAUTIFUL weather. After weeks of temps over 100 the whole week at the beach was in the 80s-low 90s.




Our adventure started on Friday when my brother flew in from Delaware. He flew into Columbia so the girls were ecstatic to get to pick up Uncle Ben from the airport. They're fascinated with the whole plane thing (and it really blew their minds when he told them that sometimes he sleeps on the plane...I think they're imagining a plane that's big enough to hold a bed for the giant!). All three girls were excited to see Ben (or Bay as Ruthie calls him) and loved that he was spending the night at our house.

Ben "got" to do the bedtime routine with the girls. Halfway through his reading I skipped out to walk Franklin and left Ben with the big girls lol! (Hey, I did put Ruthie down first!)

Saturday we packed up the car and headed to Kiawah after lunch. It was a full mini van with 3 adults and 3 kids! We had some traffic and Ruthie got a little restless at times but we made it in 3 hours which wasn't too bad.

Naptime in the car! (The blanket in the back has a sleeping Emmie underneath.)

We stayed at a new house this year (we'd outgrown the old one) and this house had a pool in the back. I was really, really nervous about the pool at first, especially with Ruthie but all of the girls did great and we really loved having the pool in the backyard! The layout of the house was also really nice. There was a master in the back and then another master down a hallway with a double bed room across the hall which was perfect for us and Ruthie. There was also a double room right off the den. There was a FROG which had 3 double beds so it was great for the big girls and was a little separated from the rest of the house so they could play in the morning without waking everyone else up. In addition to the layout of the house there were a few other perks. The house was directly across from the beach access, a huge plus when dragging 3 kids and their toys to the beach.

The house also had a little wooded area in the back and to the side and we had some deer that frequented the back yard and the path to the beach. They would come right up to the fence which the girls just loved. Poor Franklin had a slight heart attack the first time. He thinks they grow the squirrels really big on Kiawah!


Last year we saw some people having a pizza dinner on the beach and Paul and I thought that would be a fun thing to do with the girls so we planned to do it the first night at Kiawah. We walked out on the beach and the wind was sooooo strong (AND it was high, high tide). Next year we will definitely check out the wind conditions before taking our pizza to the beach...it was a bit sandy but we made the best of it and had fun eating and playing in the water.

Lovely facial expression from me.

My little crew quickly fell into a routine for our week. We got up in the morning, ate, and headed out to the beach.  It was low tide in the mornings when we were out there and the girls had a blast playing in the tide pools. After 1.5-2 hours on the beach we would head back to the house and hop in the pool.









The girls would play until lunchtime and then they'd hop out of the pool, eat their sandwiches on the deck, and hop back in the pool for a little more play time before it was time to go in for some down time!




After Ruthie took her nap the girls would play until dinnertime and then it was back to the pool or ocean until bedtime. These little girls LOVE the water!

Sister snuggles

At the beach the girls loved collecting shells, making/destroying sand castles, playing in the tide pools, occasionally playing in the ocean, chasing birds (Ruthie) and running up and down the beach.

We saw a lot of horseshoe crabs.

Ellie LOVED to roll in the dry sand and then go lay in the water. In fact she loved to lay in the water in general!

Franklin even came down to the beach some. He loved getting to hang out with his people!

Overall the weather was PHENOMENAL while we were at Kiawah. The temperature was in the 80s-low 90s the whole week and we had a nice ocean breeze. We did have a few big storms hit and Paul was almost struck by lightening (think grilling steaks on the deck with an umbrella, saw the lightening hit behind the house, and Paul let out quite the yell and sent that umbrella flying!) but the rain and storms were usually quick and then we could go back to swimming!

My brother got this picture of one of the storms moving in. Eek!

Two of the days we were at Kiawah my dad, Ben, and Paul played golf. I know Paul really enjoyed it...he doesn't get to play very often!



While we were at Kiawah we put the training wheels on Emmie's bike (we'd been trying to teach her without them but she's still just too nervous) and she LOVED getting to ride up and down the street.


Thanks to my mom we ate really well the whole week (and I didn't have to do any cooking!). We had watermelon a few nights and the girls just adore watermelon, especially Ruthie. Thanks to my dad (and Ben) we also had two nights of delicious homemade cookies and cream ice cream...also a favorite of my crew.

Clearly she gets a little crazy around the ice cream...those are definitely crazy eyes.

 (Does anyone else think Ruthie looks like Ziggy when she's eating the watermelon?)


On Thursday we had Ellie's family party and all of our family came to celebrate! It was so much fun and lived up to all of her expectations. Because, in Ellie's mind, it was such an anticipated event I'm doing a separate post on that day so stay tuned!


Saturday morning Paul got Emmie up bright and early to go watch the sunrise on the beach before the we left. Sadly, it was kind of cloudy but they still enjoyed their daddy/daughter time.